Phantom Train

This page of my website has to do with the Phantom Train (Le Train Fantôme), also known as the Nazi Ghost Train. If you scroll down you will find my brief description of what happened, originally written in 2003 and appearing elsewhere in this website. For a short bibliography on the subject, click here.

Following this page of the website are seven sub-pages:

First: A list of Alliedairmen who were imprisoned in one of the boxcars.

Sixth: A list of prisoners. It consists of approximately 977 names compiled from two separate lists provided by two different archives.

Seventh:Photos of the train. The first two photos of the type of locomotive used were provided to me by the archive of the Belgian railway, SNCB. The others were taken by me of the original locomotive and one of the original boxcars at the Museumbewaartplats Leuven (Museum Repository, Leuven).

On August 25, 1944, Gen. von Choltitz, the German commander in Paris, signed the act of surrender. Paris was liberated. The British Army now turned north—Brussels and Antwerp were next. St. Gilles, the main prison in Brussels, held 1500 political prisoners, including many members of Service EVA, such as Blanche Page, and some 50 Allied fliers. By September 1 the prisoners in their cells were already celebrating their imminent release. Family and friends packed the balconies and roofs of the buildings surrounding the prison, waiting to see their loved ones. But shortly before midnight, the German commander of Belgium, SS Gen. Richard Jungclaus, ordered the 1500 prisoners to be shipped to Germany. When the prisoners were ordered out of their cells to be loaded onto trucks, they fought back but fists were no match for rifle butts and bayonets. As the convoy of trucks made its way to the Gare du Midi railway station, the desperate prisoners wrote messages on scraps of paper and torn remnants of clothing pleading for help, which they threw from the trucks to the onlookers on the streets.

St. Gilles Prison which held 1500 political prisoners

Another chaotic scene ensued at the Gare du Midi where the SS men had to force the prisoners into the cattle cars while holding back the hundreds of relatives who were trying to prevent the prisoners from being deported. When the assistant stationmaster arrived for work early that morning he realized what was happening and ordered that the train’s departure must be delayed by every possible means. The engine’s oil pump was torn out and two successive engineers were made unavailable to take out the train, one having deliberately injured himself. While the packed train sat in the station, a railway worker, out of sight of the SS guards, tapped on the sides of the cattle cars, and whispered to the prisoners, “Don’t worry, you won’t cross the frontier.”

When the train finally did get underway, in the middle of the afternoon on Sep. 2, it was only because SS guards had guns at the head of the third engineer. But railway workers ensured that signals were always red; another train blocked its way; railway signalmen forced it onto a siding; the fireman blew the whistle so much that steam power was lost; and so on. It took eight hours to go to Malines, a town only twelve miles north of Brussels, where the German plans called for picking up a load of Jews. But the engineer devised another delay. Pretending that the engine needed more water, and knowing that the water tower at Malines was destroyed, he convinced the guards into letting him divert the train to another town, Muizen, where the train spent the night of Sep. 2-3. By now the Nazi officials had no idea where the train was.

Meanwhile, diplomats from neutral nations had been pleading with Gen. Jungclaus to allow the return of the train. He refused until the Resistance relayed a warning to him that unless it was returned, they would attack German hospital trains carrying wounded German soldiers. He finally relented.

On Sep. 3 the “Phantom Train” returned to Brussels where International Red Cross workers freed the prisoners. Fifteen hundred people had been saved. The British Army liberated Brussels on Sep. 4.

LINKS TO OTHER SOURCES

There are three sources on the Internet that I know of relating to the Phantom Train incident:

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2 responses to “Phantom Train”

My father LACROIX Robert was in this train.
he was graduated chemical engineer in june 1943 and avoid forced labour at the IG-Farben plant of Leverkussen so has to join a dropped SOE party and “résistance” grp “NOLA”.He is 88 years old.
He was shot and captured as in a ground party for a “carpet bagger ” air dropping in August 1944 at Ittre (belgium) near by Nivelles .
Questionned at the Gestapo at Nivelles (by belgians) but also at the Sipo-SD buildings at Brussels (347 and 510 av. Louise) then at the St-Gilles prison.(no major complains about the german behaviour.
I am currently in touch with veterans of the 106th USID ; among the associates I found Christian de Marcken ; his father (US citizen) and his familly lived in Belgium , I think he “saved” some crewmen but was betrayed by a neighbour and sentenced to death by (the) Germans and Marcken, Ch.was also freed from this train.
Adresse(s) de messagerie :cwdemarcken@verizon.net

My aunt , named somewhere in this epic, was a younger sister of my mum Josephine Ochelen ,(Hanosset ) from Ans , (Liege )where I was born in 1931.Her name was Emilia Hanosset , she was a nun, her religious name was :Sister Agnes , at the time of her arrest , she lived at the convent in Mont-Saint -Jean , of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul., and she willingly returned to that convent after her liberation from that Nazi Ghost Train. I saw her a few times after that , but left Belgium to go to work for the UMHK in the Katanga Province of the then Belgian Congo , from 1956 to 1960, and saw her once in 1961 before leaving Belgium to migrate to Australia where I still reside since , and I took the Australian Nationality.I saw her in 1976 , then in 1979 when I returned to Belgium on holidays to visit my family , as well as my wife’s family, and she died later on, and was interred with military honours. Her younger brother , my uncle Jean-Marie, also joined the armed resistance in the Belgian “Secret Army “in the Ardennes “Maquis “and is still alive at this date.